People, not weapons, are killing people

I am writing in response to Dave Mehan’s letter (Herald, Dec. 28) and his belief that the Second Amendment should be changed to state that “such weapons shall not include weapons that can be used for mass murder.” First, I take offense to being called a “gun loony.”

I am a college-educated businesswoman who wants to be able to protect her family, I am hardly a loony. Why is Mehan not asking for a ban on rental trucks, diesel fuel, fertilizer, Boeing 767s and 757s, jet fuel, box cutters and knives?

The three mass killings in Aurora, Tucson, Ariz., and Newtown, Conn., that involved guns killed 46 people and injured 73. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people including 19 young children in day care using a rental truck, diesel fuel and fertilizer. On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 people armed with box cutters and knives used two Boeing 767s and a Boeing 757, all loaded with more than 20,000 gallons of jet fuel to kill an estimated 3,000 and injured an untold number of people.

So I ask Mehan to explain to me how the banning of guns that can be used for mass murder is going to solve the problem when simple items such as box cutters, knives and fertilizer killed 65 percent more people than guns did? It is simple: People kill people. Weapons of any kind do not. If someone wants to commit murder, he or she will find a way. What needs to happen is, we need to take a look at our mental-health system and how our children are being raised and what they are being taught in our liberal school systems.